Photo A protester flies the Palestinian flag at the start of the regular protest n the village of Nil’in to demonstrate against land confiscation and the separation wall.

In a recent piece entitled “The Apartheid Myth: HRC Responds to Tadamon!”, Honest Reporting Canada (HRC) took issue with a letter written by Jewish members of the Tadamon! collective. HRC’s principal contention is that the letter (“Don’t Conflate Judaism with Zionism,” Wednesday, January 12, 2012) in the McGill Daily “recycled the tired Israeli Apartheid canard” while putting forth compensatory rhetorical arguments that “lack[ed] in substance.”

This disingenuous tactic of dismissing factual arguments critical of Israel as “canards,” so as to avoid the responsibility of earnestly responding to their content, is both cowardly and insincere. While Tadamon! offered specific examples of several Israeli laws and policies (out of the thirty or so) that discriminate against Palestinians, HRC offered no comment on these legal instruments of apartheid. Furthermore, HRC’s response is filled with inaccuracies and dubious statistics, most of which are themselves “recycled” from questionable sources.

Last fall, the Conservative government announced plans to expand the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA), a set of policies that serves to further legitimize Israeli occupation and apartheid, and deepen Canadian corporate and state involvement in Israeli racism and colonialism.

CIFTA, which took effect in January 1997, covers geographical areas over which Israel maintains military control (the West Bank and Gaza), and does not respect internationally-recognized borders. As such, it effectively legitimizes Israeli territorial control over all of Palestine. Furthermore, a portion of the trade covered in CIFTA (particularly in the agricultural sector) is the result of illegal settlement activity and production in industrial zones in the West Bank settlements. A failure to distinguish between Palestinian goods produced in the occupied territories reinforces the colonial logic that such production is Israeli economic activity, and arguably provides support for the expansion of its colonies.

As the first anniversary of the January 25 uprisings approaches, the Voices from Egypt interview series aims to highlight grassroots voices that provide perspective, ideas and context to post-Mubarak Egypt and in the ongoing transition and revolutionary period. Examining the current political winds and push from grassroots movements on the left to implement the revolution’s call for social and economic justice, challenge the repression by the ruling military council and create a new, democratic and equitable Egyptian society.

Tadamon! collective presents the following interviews for download from various independent media websites in an attempt to share information, news and analysis on the contemporary struggles in Egypt today that have dropped from the international media headlines.

Popular education pamphlet created for recent Montreal event, on 10/12/2011, entitled “Political Imprisonment and State Impunity”, drawing attention to political prisoners all around the world from the Philippines, to Colombia, to Egypt, to Palestine and in both Canada and the US. Please download, print, distribute this PDF document that details specific campaigns and struggles involving political prisoners fighting for freedom on different corners all around the world.